‘Oh satisfy us early with Thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.’”
Charles Green was an orphan boy in whom Susan Morley had taken great interest. He had attended the ragged school regularly for three years, and during the last part of the time Susan had been much encouraged about him, and had begun to hope that the good seed had taken root in his heart. Still, she had never felt quite sure that the boy had really given his heart to the Saviour, and often after he had left the school, as years passed away without her hearing of him, she had many anxious thoughts about him. Her great hope had been in the Bible which she had given him on parting, and in the promise he had made her that he would read a few verses in it every day. No day had passed since he sailed from England in which Susan Morley did not pray for the sailor boy far away on the sea, and ask that the Word of God might find an entrance into his heart, and make him “wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” And how abundantly her prayers had been answered, beyond all that she had thought or expected, we have already seen.
Nor was this all. On inquiring the name and other particulars respecting the poor man who had died in peace through reading the Bible given by Susan to Charlie Green, Mrs. Morris discovered on her next visit to Robert Smith that it could have been none other than the father of Polly and Lizzie. She took Lizzie with her several times to visit the dying sailor, and he was much interested in seeing the child of his former shipmate. Poor little Lizzie would often read to him out of the Bible her father had learned to love, and was never tired of asking questions about him, and would sometimes say:
“Polly and I used to pray to God to let us see our father again, but now we must pray to meet him in heaven.”
Robert Smith did not live many weeks. He had no friends living, and seemed to desire nothing further, now that he knew that the children of his comrade were alive and well cared for. Mrs. Morris visited him constantly, and saw that he wanted for nothing. Resting on Jesus, he passed away in peace, with the words on his lips of his favourite hymn:
“Hide me, O, my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm of life be past;
Safe into the haven guide,
Oh, receive my soul at last.”
Thus already had much blessed fruit sprung from the patient labours and earnest prayers of one young teacher in a little ragged school; surely only an earnest of further and fuller blessing reserved for the day of harvest by Him who has promised that His word shall not return unto Him void, but shall accomplish that which He pleases, and prosper in the thing whereto He sends it.